Biblical Pageantry
Continued...
procession around Jericho. This was a battle plan: an order of the marchers, a set number of circuits, and a culminating "big finish" that included seven priests blowing seven trumpets and a collapsing city wall. God uses to the spectacular to communicate His power and purpose. He has presented Himself as a pillar of fire, and has lifted up His own Son in the most passionate of spectacles--the crucifixion. We have every reason to make our pageantry as magnificent and awe-inspiring as possible, as it is meant to honor and proclaim this God of spectacle, splendor, and indescribable love.
One of my favorite processions is found in Exodus 33:18-23. Moses said to the Lord, "Please, show me now Your glory!" And He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you..." In this amazing account, God Himself processes before Moses, but takes care in the way He does it, that Moses might not die. We should look for God to be in our processionals, as His presence and His glory goes before and after us. But we should also soberly recognize that God can only be approached according to His own requirements.
A massive procession is described in 2 Samuel 6:12-15: bringing back the Ark to Mt. Zion from the house of Obed-Edom. The choreography seems to call for a sacrifice of oxen and fatlings every six paces. There was shouting, and the sound of a trumpet, with King David in a linen ephod, dancing before the Lord with all his might. The king's garment tells of his priestly role in the festivities. Garments can speak a vital part of the message.
Imagine the extravagance of this offering of thanksgiving. If an average pace under the load of the Ark was 18 inches, and only two oxen and two fatlings were dispatched each time, the entire event would entail 440 sacrificial stops and 1760 animals per mile! When you compute the time to kill and burn the offerings, you realize this procession could have taken days, perhaps weeks to accomplish. Biblical pageantry can require much in strength, time and resources, as well as organize and preparation that may not make a lot of sense to the natural mind.
Jesus himself led a procession into heaven. Ephesians 4:8 says, "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men." He also made an open spectacle of His enemies: "Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15). When Jesus processes, the enemy is laid to waste, and gifts are given to men; gifts of revelation, healing, deliverance and blessing go out from the processional to be received by His people.
It was customary for the closest kin to the victor to lead out in celebration. In the event of the parting of the Red Sea, Miriam, the sister of Moses, led the celebration dance with a tambourine (Exodus 15:20). How much more should the church, the Bride of Christ, celebrate the victory of her champion, Jesus, and fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:13 "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old men together..."
In the Courts of the King
Pageantry allows the King to display the beauty of His queen. In the book of Esther, King Ahasuerus held a feast in which the king ordered the beautiful Queen Vashti to appear in her crown and be paraded for public viewing. Her refusal and subsequent deposition made the way for Esther to become queen. The principle here is that the king has a right to display the beauty of his queen. When we participate in pageantry, we respond to the King's desire to show the glory of His Bride to the world. We foreshadow the great procession of Revelation 19, when Jesus comes on his white horse, displaying the beauty of all His saints behind Him, dressed in white linen.
The throne of God is a recurring theme in the pageantry of the Bible. Isaiah saw the Lord "high and lifted up", His train filling the temple. Ezekiel saw a vision of the throne with all manner of glorious manifestations surrounding it. John saw the throne of God in Revelation 4, and it is the focus